In the wake of assistant Mike Hopkins’ departure, Jim Boeheim has extended his contract at Syracuse
Jim Boeheim has extended his career as Syracuse’s head basketball coach, apparently foregoing his stated plans for retirement.
In the wake of head coach-in-waiting Mike Hopkins’ departure to assume the head coaching position at Washington, Syracuse wasted no time in sealing up an extended stay for Coach Boeheim. The Syracuse athletic department released a statement today, revealing that he had signed a new contract to lengthen his head-coaching tenure beyond the 2017-18 season. Exact terms of the deal have not been released yet, but it is assumed the extension will be long enough to give Boeheim and the school enough time to groom a replacement.
The extension marks a stark departure from Boeheim’s previous public stance. He has repeatedly stated his intentions to retire after the 2017-18 season, sealing up a coaching career that has spanned six decades with Syracuse. He started as an assistant for Syracuse soon after his playing days with the school were over. Within a decade, he had assumed the head coaching position.
Since 1976, he has amassed over 1,000 victories as the head coach — though 101 of these were vacated by the NCAA after a multi-year investigation into the university’s athletic programs. Syracuse made six Final Fours during his tenure, and won a championship in 2003 with Carmelo Anthony on the team. One of the Final Fours came just last tournament, where Syracuse crashed the party as a 10th-seeded underdog.
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A transition that had been thrown into turmoil in the wake of Hopkins’s departure got a good measure of certainty today. Jim Boeheim will maintain as the sport’s longest-tenured head coach at Syracuse. You’d have to guess one of Boeheim’s experienced assistants (and former players), like Adrian Autry or Gerry McNamara, will move into the head-coach-being-groomed position on Boeheim’s staff. The extension for Boeheim is a coup for a Syracuse program whose future seemed a bit too uncertain just a day ago. Though Syracuse missed the tournament this year, stability will be maintained. The day of future reckoning, when Boeheim and Syracuse move on from each other, is on hold for now.